"Saint Louis has long been styled as the Gateway to the West, but it is more than that. Situated at the crossroads of America, it has absorbed something from every direction, a fact plain to see if you visit the mysterious Cahokia Mounds, ruins of a lost civilization, and look back at the wide Mississippi with its Tom Sawyer paddle-steamers and famous soaring arch. It is this melting pot that makes Saint Louis such a lively cultural center.

The Times of London, June 2001